And Then There Was Word

Remember the past

As one writer put it:

"Before the development of personal computers and word processing software, documents were produced on typewriters."

Chris Pratley, a Microsoft Program Manager, started with the Excel team in 1994 and then worked with the Word team. He has written about the early days:
Let's talk about Word


Also see:
WordStar Resource Site
(Includes a WordStar emulator for Word)


And:
In Search of Stupidity


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5 Tips

A few useful ideas

"If you use Word in your daily work, a few simple tips will help you save an hour of your time per week, maybe more. Best of all, these tips are so easy to use that you can put them to work immediately upon finishing this article. Yes, they are that easy to use!"

• Let Word type names and other words and phrases for you
  
  
• Let Word insert your favorite text or graphics
  
  
• Let Word type information about your documents
  
  
• Let Word alphabetize lists for you
  
  
• Change the way Word works

5 Time-Saving Tips


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Keyboard Shortcuts

Extra pilcrows?

Here is a list of keyboard shortcuts I once or never knew.

The one that struck me was:

Ctrl Alt K — Remove extraneous paragraph marks.

This removes doubled pilcrows (¶¶).

Word-Tips

• Alt F6 — Swap open documents
  
• Alt Shift D — Insert date
  
• Alt Shift Up/Down — Move table rows or paragraphs up or down
  
• Shift F5 — Go back to last position
  
• Shift F3 — Change case
  
• Ctrl Space — Remove direct formatting
  
• Ctrl Q — Remove paragraph formatting
  
• Ctrl Shift N — Apply Normal style
  
• Ctrl Y — Repeat action
  
• Ctrl ] — increase font size by 1pt
  
• Ctrl [ — decrease font size by 1pt
  
• Ctrl Shift > — Increase font to next size up
  
• Ctrl Shift < — Decrease font to next size down

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Indent Code

Realign a bunch

Indenting blocks of VBA code, such as statements within loops or If...Then statements, makes reading a procedure much easier.

You probably indent a code statement using the [Tab] key, and outdent by using [Shift][Tab].

However, you may not be aware that the [Tab] and [Shift][Tab] techniques also work when multiple code lines are selected.

The Visual Basic Editor also provides Indent and Outdent buttons on the Edit toolbar that allow you to easily reposition blocks of code.


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Convert List Numbers to Text

Pesky lists

Applying the list numbering style to paragraphs is easy. The problem is that if the style is removed, the numbers disappear as well.

The same thing is true with bullets.

The following macro will change the list numbers and LISTNUM fields to text and the bullets to a symbol font.

Sub NoAutoNum()
ActiveDocument.ConvertNumbersToText
End Sub

You can now do such things as individually format numbers and bullets.
The action is not reversible, so either use Undo right away, or use it on a copy of the original.

ConvertNumbersToText


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